SA BA office has different availabilities than ExpertFlyer
 

I've run into a snag:

I asked BA US (automatically transferred to Manchester, UK) to book an AONE4 starting in JNB. ExpertFlyer shows A9 as available on JNB-LHR, but, as it starts in South Africa, BA UK have to book it via the BA SA office who tell them it's not available. When I queried this and sent a print out of EF, BA UK said

"We have to book from the relevant office of origin when quoting ZAR fares."

Has anyone else run into this problem, please? On the seating plan, EF shows every seat as available.

Do offices in different countries use separate buckets? Or are the BA SA office making up their own quotas?

If the latter, once I've done the JNB-LHR leg, can I assume that EF availability will be accurate?

I have had issues with availability like that for an ex CMB booking, E/F showed D available for MEL-LHR for ex USA bookings but not for CMB origination. Fixed by booking SYD-LHR.

Availability does differ by country. IIRC EF shows inventory available in the USA. I have found HKG availability sometimes differs (eg D0 whereas EF shows D9). I'd be pretty sure BA is not making it up, but IME they do have a habit of trying to put you on BA codeshares whenever possible (especially on AA USA domestics).

Fare bucket availability can differ based on POS (Point Of Sale). ExpertFlyer until recently only showed US or UK POS, now also has Germany, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.

Completely irrelevant.

If booked through the SA office, then SA availability is what matters.

yes, i encountered similar problem with cx, trying to reissue 2 QR flights. EF showed D9 for both. cx said none. my rtw is a done4

New xONEx rules?
 

I'm now being told by BA that I have "too many sectors in Europe on new rules for AONE4 tickets".

Originating in South Africa, I'm using CPT-JNB-LHR-DUB-LHR-DXB-LHR-MIA.........

There aren't any "new" rules since Dec 2016 are there?

Well yes there is a new version of the rules, issued on 1-Feb-2017
But there was no change to the relevant rule for you, it still states:So the BA agent is incorrect. You have four flights in Europe-Middle East, which complies with the rule.

Just a thought though. By "DUB" do you mean Dubai? (It's actually the code for Dublin, DXB is the code for Dubai)
If you are saying "Dubai" to the agent, then the agent might be thinking there is still a restriction of the number of flights between the UK and the Middle East (used to be limited to two, but that restriction was lifted sometime last year).

The itinerary includes both DUB (Dublin) AND DXB (Dubai).

:oOops, sorry, I somehow failed to notice that:confused: